Spamforth Chronicles, Chapter 1: Part 1
by MM Burrows
Summary: Spamforth the beggar makes a friend who will change his life, and Azeroth, forever.


After an unsuccessful panhandling session at the base of the temple of light steps, the beggar Spamforth climbed those same steps in the hope of finding handouts in the chapel proper. He decided that churchgoing was a somber enough affair to warrant walking, so he slowed the headlong sprint that was his usual means of conveyance. As he was rounding the circular vestibule towards the Hall of Prayers, he came face to face with a strange figure.

The man had the same beefy build and heroic face as Spamforth, but his skin was a deep brown, and rather than Spamforth's soup-stained mustache and feminine red hair, he was clean-shaven and bald. They both stared at each other for a moment. "I'm black," said the black man, opening his arms warmly.

"Me too," Spamforth replied, opening his arms warmly.

"Let's be friends," the black man suggested, opening his arms warmly.

"No, better yet, brothers!" spamforth shouted excitedly, cupping his hands around his mouth though his new friend/brother was only a few feet away.

The two both laughed in unison, then the bald man followed Spamforth into the church, though he had previously been leaving.

"Oh, I'm Mariell," Mariell told Spamforth in a highly introductory fashion.

"I'm Spamforth, the hobo," Spamforth replied, opening his arms warmly as he walked.

"My dad was a hobo," Mariell noted.

"Nuh uh."

"Was too. I swear by the light."

"Neat. Hey look, a priest!" Spamforth yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth, then pointing towards a supercilious brunette human in formfittinggray robes with golden trim.

"Don't let her get away!" Mariell commanded, though she was walking leisurely through a corridor beyind the Hall of Prayer's pillars, as were they.

As they followed her, Spamforth commented on her vestments. "I can't believe they let priests wear stuff like that."

"My dad decided it was okay. He used to be the head priest."

"I thought he was a hobo."

"He was, after he did that!"

Do ho ho.

At length, they caught up with her in the temple's southern Hall of Knowledge where the clergy went to read the meager collection of four shelves of tomes, or to stand motionless and induct new members of the Argent Dawn.

Mariell held up his arms and flexed his biceps, which were no more or less impressive than those of every other man in Stormwind. "Hey baby. You tried the rest, now try the best."

"Alms, alms, by the Light! If not for me, then for my children, or their pets, or their pets' fleas!" Spamforth pleaded expertly, falling to his knees and clutching at the skirt of the priest's robes.

The priest was slow in responding, which Mariell saw as his opportunity to lay it on thicker. "Time to find out what you've been missing, babe."

The priest angrily motioned them away. "I won't be spreading the mouth of my coinpurse, or anything else! Begone, the both of you!"

Spamforth and his new oath-brother stood in dumb silence for a few seconds, then broke into full sprints back into the main hall. As they did so, Spamforth sobbed bitterly for a few seconds into his arm, and Mariell flipped her off repeatedly while running backwards.

"Bitches don't know," Mariell fumed as the pair emerged in the grand, opulent, and unnoticed Hall of Prayers.

Spamforth nodded, despite having no idea what that meant. "Where'll I get some money now?" he asked.

"Dunno bro. Look, a paladin."

And a paladin it was. The resplendent plates that shielded his powerful body from both attacks and immodesty gleamed as white and golden as the clouds and sun. Each of his pauldrons were twice the size of his head, and indeed were so majestic they required heads of their own.

"Let's tell him about the troll in the catacombs," quoth Spamforth.

"What troll?" Mariell asked incredulously.

"C'mon."

"Okay."

"Oh radiant sir, please! Set aside your divine duties for just a moment, for we have need of you! Only one so righteous as yourself can save us from the troll of the catacombs!"Spamforth entreated.

"Yea, show me to the foul fiend. I'll make quick work of him." The paladin said confidently, but not too confidently.

"This way, this way!" Spamforth yelled over his shoulder as he led the paladin to a spiral staircase off to one side of the hall, which led to the catacombs.

"Stand aside. When I return, it will be with its head," the paladin said gravely as he disappeared around the staircase's corner.

Mariell and Spamforth waited until his echoing footsteps left earshot, then began slapping each other's knees and rearing their heads back in laughter that had been waiting to escape. Their mirth was interrupted when they noticed a presence that they hadn't before.

"I... am... Nimrod!" Squeaked a gray-haired gnome wearing dark mages' robes. "I will follow you!" he stated simply but emphatically.

"No, we hate you," disagreed Mariell.

"Aye, we do," agreed Spamforth.

The gnome didn't respond.

"Let's leave. I want a Goldshire prostitute," Mariell decided.

"Okay. Maybe they'll give me money," Spamforth remarked hopefully.

"No, you give them money."

"I don't give anyone money."

The two guffawed as they ran through Stormwind's cobblestone streets to the city entrance, with Nimrod tailing them all the while.

"Hey Mariell."

"Yeah?"

"I lied about being black earlier."

"It's okay." 


End file.
